Summary
John talks to comedian Sage Boggs about Triscuit’s bizarre relationship with its own name.
Show notes
- Sage’s viral tweet
- John’s original tweet to Triscuit
- Some old Triscuit advertisements
- Triscuit’s response to Sage
- Triscuit tweets about three ingredients
- Snopes article on this matter
- Charles Louis Richter questions the answer
- Some more evidence that Triscuit meant “thrice cooked biscuit”
- Wikipedia article for Oreo
Related episodes
- An updated version of this episode ran on Underunderstood: Why Is It Called A Triscuit?
Transcript
John: Hi, everyone.
Adrianne: Hey, Jon.
Regina: Hi.
Billy: Hey.
John: All right. You might wanna reorder those. Sure. We’ll, we’ll do a little magic. All right, so we’re gonna do something a little bit different today. We’re gonna do a mystery that has basically been solved, but maybe has a mini-mystery at the end that is not solved. Everyone on board?
Regina: Yeah.
Adrianne: Okay.
Billy: Uh, no. Yes. Yes, I’m on board.
John: Okay, great. Uh, this is a mystery that took four years to solve, and it was solved by a friend of ours.
Sage: My name is Sage Boggs and I am a comedy writer working in New York City, currently living in Brooklyn.
John: And you recently, uh, I don’t know, you became a little bit internet famous for something?
Sage: Um, that’s right, yeah. About two weeks into the global pandemic, I d- I posted a Twitter thread about the origin of the name Triscuit and it went, uh, unbelievably viral, unexpectedly.
John: So do you guys remember this?
Billy: Y- yeah, I do remember this, but I forgot how nice of a voice Sage has.
John: It’s soothing, isn’t it?
Billy: It’s, yeah, it’s like-
Regina: It’s really nice.
John: In these trying times?
Billy: … like, velvety smooth.
John: Yeah. Uh, so you might’ve seen this Twitter thread going around. Uh, it began with the tweet, “Okay, buckle up, I wanna talk to you about Triscuit.” The story starts at a party four years ago.
Sage: It was summer of 2016. We were at a party at our friend’s house and there were Triscuits there, and I asked everyone, you know, like, “Why are they called Triscuits?” And I should say, it w- the party was fun. Like, I wasn’t like- … reaching for something to talk about. I wasn’t like, “Uh, what can I talk about?” It was a good party. I just happened to w- to want to know, I guess.
John: Uh, so not to brag or anything, but I was also at this party with Sage.
Billy: Oh, what?
Regina: Wow.
Adrianne: You were at a party?
Billy: When was this party?
Regina: You didn’t tell me that.
John: This party was in 2016.
Billy: Huh.
Regina: Who’s, who’s party was it?
John: It was Nathan.
Billy: It’s interesting because I knew both of you in 2016, but go on.
Regina: Yes, so did I.
John: Oh!
Billy: Ooh!
Regina: So did I. Also, you just said-
Billy: Let’s, uh…
Regina: … it was Nathan’s party? I know Nathan.
Billy: Oh, I knew, yeah.
John: We can move on from, ooh, yikes.
Billy: I’ve known Nathan for a while.
Regina: Hmm. Wow.
John: So anyway, I was at this party too, you know, hanging out with my friends, uh, Sage and Nathan, and, uh-
Regina: Your friends.
John: … I only vaguely remember this thing where the conversation turned into, uh, why Triscuits are called Triscuits.
Sage: It became, like, a fun conversation of, like, “Yeah, why are they called that?” And we, I think we were all kind of, like, Googling it and being like, “Yeah, there’s nothing really legitimate online about this.”
John: Just a bunch of Quora posts, Yahoo Answers, like, type stuff. Uh, nothing really definitive.
Sage: Like, everyone was on the same page that it, it’s biscuit, obviously, but what’s the tri? And I think almost everyone was like, “It’s three.” Yeah, tri. Duh, right? Like, but what is the three? Three what?
John: Three layers.
Sage: Right, like three ingredients. Just, like, three something. And that’s what most of the internet said too. And I think you were the one who tweeted at them, @Triscuit.
John: So I have absolutely no recollection of doing this, but Sage sen-
Regina: Jon was wasted.
John: I… Yep, caught me. Uh, but Sage sent me the proof that during that party on July 16th, 2016, I tweeted, “Hey, @TheRealTriscuit, why is it called a Triscuit? urgent.”
Adrianne: Their, their-
John: I-
Adrianne: … handle is TheRealTriscuit?
John: TheRealTriscuit, and they are verified on Twitter. So I tweeted, “Hey, @TheRealTriscuit, why is it called a Triscuit? urgent.” I sent off the tweet. Triscuit did not respond during the party, so I forgot about it the next day. But apparently it was on Sage’s mind for, like, the rest of the weekend.
Sage: I had, like, a sketch group practice the next day with some of my friends. I’m in this sketch show every month in Brooklyn and I told them the story, and they were like, “What?” Everyone was, like, freaking out about it, and it became this kind of, like, bit. And then my friend, Kevin, emailed them. So we had these two lines of questions out. One was your tweet and then one was this email. And then I think we got answers on both lines around the same time, and it was the exact same thing.
John: He’s right about this, and I’d forgotten that Triscuit actually responded to my tweet. On July 21st, which is five days after the first tweet, th- uh, @TheRealTriscuit responded, “The name is a fun derivation of the biscuit, and ‘tri’ doesn’t mean ‘three.’ However, there are no records to know what inspired the name.”
Billy: Hmm.
Adrianne: Isn’t that sort of unbelievable?
John: I think it’s unbelievable.
Billy: When-
Regina: Yeah.
Billy: When were Triscuits created again?
John: In the early 20th century. No Googling.
Adrianne: Like, 1903.
John: Yes, that’s exactly the year that they were created. Um, the email that Sage’s friend, Kevin, got was basically the same. It said, “Thank you for your interest in our Triscuit Crackers. No business records survived which explain the origins or inspiration for the name, Triscuit, but we do know the name was chosen as a fun derivation of the word biscuit. The ‘tri’ does not mean three. If you haven’t done so already, please add our site to your favorites list and visit us again soon. Triscuit.”
Billy: What’s weird to me is that they’re insistent on two things that seem to kind of contradict each other.
Adrianne: Uh-huh.
Billy: One being that-
John: Mm-hmm.
Billy: … there are no records to indicate-
John: Mm-hmm.
Billy: … where the name come, came from, but two-
John: Mm-hmm.
Billy: … it’s definitely not three. So how do they know it’s definitely not three? Where does that come from?
John: Yes, exactly. And this didn’t sound right to Sage either.
Sage: And we were like, “What the hell?” This makes no sense. What happened at the Triscuit factory, um, ‘cause they say no business records survived. We’re like, “What happened?” … to Nabisco’s headquarters? Like, did it explode? Did… Were there mass casualties? Did someone run out of the door yelling, “It doesn’t mean three?” And it just, it continued to just be like a dumb bit where we were like, “Wow, no one knows what Triscuit means. This is crazy.” And I was like, “You know what? I’m going to find out. I’m gonna go find out.”
John: Sage Boggs does sound like a film noir detective name.
Regina: Yeah. And he’s just after such a noble cause.
John: Sage Boggs, private eye. Uh, so, so Sage starts Googling, and he doesn’t quite remember how, but through some kind of Wikipedia rabbit hole, he found these images of some of the very first advertisements for Triscuit from around 1903. Um, so I’m gonna send these to you from his tweet. Um, could one of you guys describe, uh, the ads in this tweet?
Regina: Oh, wow. “Baked by electricity.”
John: Mm-hmm.
Regina: Um, there’s a common theme in these ads, which is a lot of lightning bolts- … um, and mentions of electricity.
John: So what are you seeing in here?
Regina: Uh, Triscuit, which, um, is, has a background of several lightning bolts, and then it says, “The electric baked biscuit. Used as bread, toast, crackers, or wafers.” And then it’s like, Triscuits that are at the bottom of a waterfall, but the water turns into lightning bolts. And then it says, “Baked by electricity, Niagara Falls, USA.”
John: And the Triscuits are abso- over those lightning bolts, yeah.
Regina: Yeah.
John: Yeah, so the- And Niagara Falls specifically.
Regina: Yeah.
John: Yeah. The, uh, the, the, the original factory wh- where Triscuit was originally made was in Niagara Falls. Not in Niagara Fall, you know, in the area of Niagara Falls.
Regina: If you go into the waterfall, there’s not rocks at the bottom, there are Triscuits.
John: No, it’s all Triscuits.
Billy: Yeah, I don’t claim to know a lot about electricity. You know, I’ve s- I’ve swapped a few- … light fixtures and, uh, light switches. But from what I know, if something’s like, emanating electricity, you kinda don’t wanna get it near water is my basic understanding-
John: Yeah.
Billy: … from like…
John: This ad is basically Niagara Falls, uh, dousing a bunch of Triscuit, uh, with electricity.
Billy: Right, like every fish in this entire river died- … because this electric tray of biscuits fell into it.
John: Uh, and then the second ad here is just all text, uh, and it says, “Triscuit, baked by electricity,” at the top. Um, uh, “Triscuits are to be eaten with cream, fruit juices, as toast with eggs, and 1,001 other ways, each of which is fully and comprehensively explained in the neat little booklet which accompanies each package of genuine Triscuits. Triscuit is baked by electricity, the only food on the market prepared by this 1903 process.” Um-
Regina: You think they taste basically the same?
John: That’s a really good ques- I don’t know.
Billy: No, I bet those-
Regina: I really like Triscuits.
Billy: I bet those ones were so good. I bet they were like, kinda burnt. They sorta tasted like metal. That’s what I’ll say.
Regina: I still wouldn’t-
John: In the water.
Regina: … eat them with cream.
John: They might need milk.
Billy: Yeah, I’m-
John: I don’t know.
Billy: Yeah, I’m trying to figure out the cream thing.
John: No, it’s probably-
Billy: There were other-
John: … creme fraiche on the cracker.
Billy: People are creaming their Triscuits?
Regina: Or like cream cheese, yeah. Okay.
John: Okay, but a- anyway, the, the big thing here-
Billy: So you found out why people were creaming them?
John: Anyway, the big thing is that there are- … lightning bolts on the name Triscuit. It says, “Baked by electricity.”
Sage: It was like, “Oh, look at this old ad. There’s lightning bolts on it, electricity.” And then maybe took a few seconds and it clicked…
Regina: Wait, is tri for part of electricity?
John: Yes. It means…
Regina: What?
John: Yes, Triscuit means electricity biscuit.
Regina: Electric biscuit.
John: No, electricity biscuit.
Regina: Electric biscuit sounds so much better than electricity biscuit.
John: Yeah, but tris for electricity biscuit.
Regina: Electricis-
John: Yeah, but biscuit already has isc.
Regina: Yeah, but-
John: You’re ruining the biggest reveal in the whole thing.
Regina: I’m sorry- I’m sorry, but it’s a bad reveal…. but it’s just…
Billy: For the record, Electric Biscuit was the name of my, uh, early 2000s new metal band.
John: But Triscuit means electricity biscuit.
Sage: I mean, it clicked almost instantly. When you see all the lightning bolts on the tees and stuff, you’re like, “Oh, this was the selling point.” Like, this-
John: Yeah.
Sage: They wanted everyone to know that these were bas- baked by electricity. That’s a super exciting thing for people in 1903, I imagine. I think like the same way like Impossible Burgers are exciting for us now. It’s like, “It’s baked from nothing?” Like, it’s not meat. Like, back then it was like, “Oh my God, this was made with electricity?”
John: Electricity biscuit, Triscuit.
Regina: Wow.
Billy: Yeah, wow.
John: So all of that was back in 2016 when all of this clicked. And Sage wound up making like a PowerPoint about this. He sent it to me. It’s just this very basic Stark PowerPoint uh, because he would occasionally do a little mock presentation about the origin of the name Triscuit as part of those sketch shows that he does in Brooklyn.
Regina: Is it like he pretends to be the Mad Men representative on the Triscuit account who’s like, “I got it.”
John: I think it’s more like he presents himself as like a researcher who’s discovered an unknown fact about Triscuit.
Regina: Okay, which is true.
John: Uh, yeah, so-
Billy: Hmm, interesting concept.
John: … sometimes this bit would bomb, but sometimes the crowd, he told me, would go nuts for it. Um, so he knew that there was something about this story that was like appealing to some people. So after four years, he finally tweeted this as a thread on March 25th, 2020. That was last week in our world. Uh, and it immediately took off. Tons and tons of retweets, likes, responses from people. Um, on the day he tweeted it, Triscuit was trending in the US on Twitter.
Sage: I mean, my post right now is at like 180,000 likes or something.
John: Oh my God.
Sage: Which is ridiculous. It’s so many. It’s more, way more than anything I’ve ever gotten on Twitter.
Regina: I like that that’s the ridiculous thing, not the fact that this is the electric biscuit.
John: … electricity biscuit.
Adrianne: Sorry, electricity biscuit.
Billy: I mean, it was really wild to see this trending on Twitter because this was as, you know… I wouldn’t say this was the peak of the, uh, COVID-19 situation, but this was, like, definitely-
John: It was cresting.
Adrianne: It was, yeah.
John: The, the wave was cresting.
Billy: This was… It was, like, at the point where everyone was starting to take it seriously when maybe, like, some people weren’t, like, like… This was when this was, like the only story out there, was the global pandemic that was going on.
Adrianne: And Triscuit.
Billy: And Triscuits.
John: I kinda think that might have helped it along though, also, ‘cause it was like this kinda stupid, insignificant, funny-
Adrianne: Yeah.
John: … self-contained thing.
Adrianne: It’s like a nice little break.
John: It was like scratching an itch.
Adrianne: Mm-hmm.
John: Like, and, and, and it was the right number of tweets too. It was like eight or 10 tweets. It was like a short enough thread, but enough to, like, get you invested from the beginning. But whatever made it popular, this thing is making the rounds, thousands of people are noticing.
Sage: And I think Triscuit, like, gained a few thousand followers. They’re… I mean, they’re getting tagged left and right. There’s like 40,000 plus comments with, like, their @, you know? So this is… Who’s ever in charge of their social media must’ve been, like, flipping out.
John: So of course, the next day, on March 26th, the Triscuit Twitter account responds to Sage.
Sage: But Triscuit did finally acknowledge it, and they said… What did they say? They said, “We had to go all the way up the ladder, but we can confirm,” lightning bolt emoji.
John: And now-
Billy: What?
John: … if… Yeah. If all of you go to Twitter, to… If all of you go to Triscuit’s Twitter profile at The Real Triscuit… Ah, such a bad handle. The Real Triscuit. Uh-huh.
Adrianne: They changed their bio.
John: Yeah, what is their bio?
Adrianne: Electricity Biscuit. The, the emphasis means all caps, but you can just call us Triscuit. IFYKYK, and then a lighting bolt.
John: Do you know what the hashtag means?
Billy: Oh, oh, it’s-
Sage: #IF-
Adrianne: If you know, you know.
John: Hashtag IF… Sorry. Hashtag IFYKYK, lightning bolt. Which means?
Adrianne: Who knows? If you know, you know.
Billy: If you know, you know.
Adrianne: Yeah.
Billy: Yeah.
Adrianne: But I don’t, I don’t understand why IF gets the whole thing, and-
John: It is weird, right?
Adrianne: It should be IYKYK. It shouldn’t be-
John: Yeah.
Billy: Why not, “If you don’t know, now you know”?
John: Also.
Billy: IF.
Adrianne: It doesn’t matter then. It still shouldn’t be IF.
Billy: And they put the lightning bolt emoji in their name.
John: Yes.
Billy: I mean, this… They’re, like, all over this.
Adrianne: It is like Triscuit just discovered this about itself. It’s like- I think they did just discover this about themself.
John: Well, maybe, but the tweet says, “We had to go all the way up the ladder, but we can confirm,” lightning bolt emoji, and this is four years after telling both Sage and me that there were no company records to know what the origin of the name Triscuit was.
Adrianne: Right, but- They just never brought it high enough-
John: This is-
Adrianne: … up the ladder.
John: Exactly.
Billy: This is such a weird- … brand tweet too because, like, as @therealtriscuit, isn’t this account s- supposed to be speaking from the perspective of Triscuit?
John: Right, the brand. Yeah.
Billy: There is no ladder. You are Triscuit.
John: Yeah.
Billy: You are the… It’s a horizontal ladder.
John: Right, and like-
Billy: It’s just Triscuit.
John: So-
Adrianne: It’s like a, a lattice.
Billy: Shouldn’t, shouldn’t you know what… Yeah, shouldn’t you know what your origins are?
John: It’s really confusing. So like, for a moment, it was like, yes, we got the answer. Sage even retweeted that and said, “We did it.” But like, there are lingering suspicions.
Adrianne: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Sage: I mean, I accepted it in the moment. I was like, “Great, we did it.” Like, “I was right.” Um, it’s electricity biscuit? But the more I think about it, the more I’m like, “What?” Like, what does up the ladder mean? Why- … did you before not have any business records, but now you know it’s electricity biscuit? Why wouldn’t you have shared that before? Why are you telling people it’s not three, but all your marketing has, like, the number three on it?
Billy: And a super quick turnaround, a super crick, quick turnaround while basically everyone else-
John: Yes.
Billy: … in the world is scrambling-
John: Yes.
Billy: … to figure out how to readjust their work lives or their personal lives to, to fit a quarantine.
John: Right. Yes.
Billy: Like, they’re able to contact the CEO of Triscuit about this very important matter?
John: Well, why would the CEO-
Billy: Like, well I just assume that’s the top of the ladder.
John: There is no CEO of Triscuit either. It’s like they’re-
Billy: What?
John: … owned by Nabisco and also-
Billy: Oh.
John: … distributed by some other company. Um, like, they’re not an independent company. Like, I don’t know what up the ladder means, but he, he also said that… and he’s right, uh, all your marketing has the number three on it. Uh, before this episode, it, it, it really does seem like Triscuit was leaning into tri meaning three.
Sage: If you look on a box of Triscuits, there’s a, like, blue square that says, “Starts with three simple ingredients.” Like, that’s on the box. So you would think, like, obviously I see tri, I see three. It’s the three thing.
John: And if you go back through Triscuits’ Twitter history, you see a couple more things that imply that to them tri means three. Like in November of 2012, they tweeted, “Best party checklist. One, people. Two, party hats. Three, Triscuit. /#TriscuitParty.” And they-
Adrianne: They’re not good at this.
John: N- well no, they’re not-
Adrianne: Yeah.
John: … good at Twitter in general, but that’s like a three thing. They respond to other questions with the three ingredients thing. Um, I’ve got one here…. uh, this person asked them, “What does a Triscuit taste like? Never had one and wanting to start eating better.” A strange thing to tweet at Triscuit, but they responded, “Hi. Triscuit Original starts with just three simple ingredients: whole grain wheat, oil, and sea salt. Be sure to give it a try.” Like, they’re leaning into-
Regina: That’s such a cheat.
John: … three.
Regina: They’re like, “It’s not that it is three ingredients. It’s that it’s more than three ingredients.” “But it starts with three.”
John: “But it starts with…” Well, that’s, uh, even more reason, like, it seems like they’re leaning into this three thing, like they’ve, they’ve backed into Triscuit meaning three biscuit.
Regina: So you think this is a retcon?
John: Yeah, yeah, I kinda do.
Billy: I would be more impressed if they somehow had more than three ingredients, but it didn’t start with three ingredients.
Regina: It starts with five.
John: Like, that would be impressive.
Billy: Or they added ingredients to make it work. Or it just somehow skipped the third ingredient. It’s like a missing floor on a building, you know?
John: But Sage also, Sage also thinks they’re retconning.
Billy: It almost seems like… Did they try to transition from like their- … to the three thing? They were like, “It’s not cool-” “… to be baked by electricity anymore. Like that’s so lame.” “Now, we’re the three, now we’re into three step.” It feels like they just adjust to the times to be like, “What’s cool right now?”
John: And, and there are other doubters on the internet as well. Um, really quickly, Snopes has written up this whole thing, and they explored the possibility that it doesn’t actually mean electricity at all. They write, um, “Our working theory was based on the etymology of the word biscuit, which was derived from the Medieval Latin word, uh, biscoctum, meaning twice baked. Uh, the quiz show Jeopardy! used this logic for a clue during a 2018 episode, posting, ‘The name of this cracker that’s been around since 1903 suggests that it was baked three times. However, we were unable to find any advertisements or company materials describing the Triscuit as a thrice-baked cracker.’” Um, and in fact, Snopes found some documents that described th- that the, The Natural Food Company, which made Triscuits starting in 1902, um, they came up with a huge electric bakery for Triscuits, uh, with what they said was 10,000, um, I guess, small electric ovens that they would put the things in. And they said that fewer than 1% of the Triscuits made had any flaws, uh, for any reason. Bec- and, and, and in, uh, in 1911, um, a Shredded Wheat cookbook mentioned that the Triscuit cooking method, quote, “has attracted the attention of electricians from all over the world.” Uh, so-
Regina: What? Did they have a patent on any of this?
John: Ooh, good question. I don’t know. I’ll look into that.
Billy: Yeah, ‘cause that could indicate whether this was something that was like what they thought of it-
Regina: A revolution.
Billy: … as from the beginning or if an advertising company was like, “Okay. Triscuit. How could we make this cool on a poster or in some copy? Oh, what if tri was electricity?”
John: The baked with electricity, like, imagery is really cool. Like, it looks great. Like, the T is a lightning bolt going over the rest of the word in Triscuit. It’s, like, very cool stuff. Um-
Billy: Right. I’m just saying just because the early advertising seems to be indicating that that’s what tri means-
John: Mm-hmm.
Billy: … doesn’t mean that that’s what the person who originally named it intended.
John: That’s fair. Uh, and like this is what makes the… All of that was from Snopes. In the end- … Snopes just like took Triscuit at their word also, uh, because at the end of the article, it’s just like, “Yeah, but then, uh, a day later, Triscuit responded and said that they were right. Sage got it.” So, they didn’t really go farther with this either. To me, this leaves a lot of questions. Four years ago, Triscuit claimed that all the records have been lost, right? But now, when one tweet thread blows up, they’re able to go all the way up the ladder and find a definitive answer in a single day during a pandemic.
Billy: Um, so now, I’m in my head again of like, does this go deeper? Um, like, why are they… Why did they latch onto it so quickly? And I’m, I’m, I’m like, I don’t know. I’m like, I’m a bit skeptical. I’ll say it.
John: Other Twitter folks had the same skepticism, which turned up some interesting stuff. Uh, I’m looking at a tweet here. Uh, this is Charles Louis Richter, who, uh, is a PhD candidate in American religion. Uh, he s- calls himself a historian as well. “The Triscuit saga is enormously frustrating for me because the electricity biscuit thesis is not well-supported by available documents. But Nabisco, which has already said it has no documentation as to the name’s origin, is now confirming the thesis with no evidence.” So, he started looking around for more stuff, and check out this tweet that he retweeted. This is an ad, uh, which also seems to be from around the same-
Regina: There it is.
John: … time period. Yeah. Uh, on a little sidebar thing, it says, “Shredded Wheat & Triscuit.” Uh, there’s a few paragraphs of text here. Uh, the interesting part, “Only the most luxuriant kernels of wheat are used and those are thoroughly cleansed and then thrice cooked and spun into porous shreds.”
Regina: Oh.
Billy: Hmm.
John: So, this thing is implying that Triscuit is baked three times, and it might actually mean three.
Regina: That’s pretty strong.
Billy: Hmm.
John: But so is the other advertising, which says, “Baked by electricity.”
Regina: Well, right, but they can both be true. Like, it could’ve originally been Triscuit, and it was baked three times by electricity, but that wasn’t why it was named Triscuit. It was named Triscuit because of the three times. But now, that-
John: But, but, but now Triscuit the brand is saying that… is confirming that Sage got it right.
Regina: Because they no longer h- But they no longer have to cook it three times or bake it three times.
John: But then what is the latter?
Billy: Right.
John: What’s the top-
Regina: I don’t know.
John: … of the ladder that told them this is where the name came from?
Regina: Oh, that’s just bullshit.
Billy: Well-
Regina: That’s like, “Oh-” … “we’ve decided this is a good marketing strategy.”
John: Well, then why did it-
Adrianne: Right.
John: … take them a full day?
Adrianne: Yeah, ‘cause they had to go up the ladder.
Regina: ‘Cause they needed to get it approved. Yeah.
Adrianne: They had to get… It does seem, it seems fast even if it’s an approval for a retcon.
Regina: Yeah, 100%.
Billy: Maybe they went all the way up the Nabisco social media manager’s ladder. This is basically just like the person that manages them, the Triscuit tweeter.
John: Well, I found some other stuff too, because assuming it’s really Electricity Biscuit for real, I found some stuff that implies that Triscuit, like, could or should have known about this sooner. So in October 2015, uh, someone named Isabelle Ray tweeted at Triscuit, “I wonder if @therealtriscuit is still baked by electricity?” And she attached a photo, um, of the ad that, that Sage found a year later. That photo is the, is that Niagara Falls ad, um, and it’s hanging in the American History Museum.
Regina: Huh?
John: And Twitter… And Triscuit actually responded to this, uh, and they said, uh, “Not including electricity, we’re still baked with three simple ingredients, whole grain wheat, vegetable oil and sea, sea salt.” So, the same Twitter account was made aware of the electricity thing and then came back with the three ingredients thing at that point.
Billy: Hmm.
Adrianne: When they said it, then?
Regina: They just want to have their Triscuits and eat them too.
John: That was in 2015, a year before Sage and I reached out to them.
Adrianne: Right, could have been a different tweeter.
John: I mean, sure, but it’s the brand. And going back even farther, the Wikipedia page for Triscuits, uh, since 2007 has contained the information that Triscuit was, quote, “baked by electricity.” So, why has Triscuits’ official line been that they previously didn’t know where the name came from or that no records survived when there is all of this stuff on the internet already that says that, uh, Triscuit is baked by electricity? Like, once you know that, it’s pretty easy to come to the, come to the conclusion, especially when you see the ad, that Triscuit is Electricity Biscuit.
Billy: Right. Well, so I had heard about this story before Sage had tweeted it. I heard it relayed to me at another party, and I remember looking it up at the time and the, uh, the Google Knowledge Graph or whatever it’s called, the answer that Google gives when you ask, uh… when, when you ask Google, “Why is Triscuit called Triscuit?” At the time, uh, pulled a snippet from some article that explained it as being, uh, because of the number three. Now, if you search it, it shows the Wikipedia article saying that it’s baked by electricity.
John: Well, yeah, this is kind of screwing it up. Like, when I was talking to Sage, we both realized that the popularity of his story has actually made it very difficult to now search the internet for for other answers, because it’s completely polluted by everybody else picking up on his thing.
Billy: Right. I’m just saying, if you’re the social media person for Triscuit, maybe you just Google it and you assume, since that’s the answer Google gave you, that it must be true and you don’t bother to check with anyone. And so, they’re just going with that until they’re confronted with this thing that seems to be correct but contradicts what they’ve always said, and so they have to check with someone else.
John: Yeah, I don’t know, but like, the water seems far too muddy for just, like, believing, right?
Billy: Oh, yeah. I’m highly suspicious.
Regina: Yeah, no way.
Billy: Yeah, and-
John: And I mean, Sage is now too.
Billy: I kind… I want proof. I want to sit down with that person and be like, “How do you know? Show me how you know.”
John: Uh, but also, Sage didn’t totally feel like he was in, uh, the right moment to be making demands.
Billy: Well, I should say, they offered… they were very nice to me. They DM- they messaged me on Twitter and they offered they offered me some product.
John: No.
Billy: So, they’re, they’re like mai- they’re like mailing me s- something. I don’t know, um, if it’s Triscuits or like merchandise or something. And I’m so grateful. That’s so nice of them. Um, so shout out to Triscuit. Like, I love Triscuit, but I can’t help but be a bit skeptical.
John: Well, are they trying to buy your silence?
Billy: I don’t think that’s it, no. Um, I sure hope that’s not it. I’d get like a finger in the mail. Like, “Oh my God - … whose is this?”
John: Okay, this is Jon back in the present. Um, after we recorded this, I tried repeatedly to reach out to Mondelēz International, which is actually the parent company of Nabisco, and, uh, Triscuit is actually now a Mondelēz International brand, I suppose. I tried calling and emailing multiple times, um, but, you know, it’s a pandemic and, uh, this one seemed like pretty much a cold case. The story leading up to any answer, I think, is more interesting than, uh, any answer itself. So, uh, this one, uh, remains a semi-mystery, just a curiosity. But I do think there’s, uh, a lot more room for snack food mysteries in the future.
Billy: Well, I was looking up, um, Oreo. Like, no one knows why they’re called Oreos, which is another Nabisco company.
John: Wait, really?
Billy: Yeah. The first, like, if you go to their Wikipedia, the first thing under history is like, there are no… no one knows. There’s like just a ton of theories.
John: Wow.